John Oliver Finally Disposes of Creepy Dolls That Washed Up on Texas Beach in a Very John Oliver Way (Video)
John Oliver has finally gotten rid of the creepy dolls acquired by the show that were washing up on a Texas beach earlier this year. And yes, he did it in the most John Oliver fashion possible — using a famous singer and talking trash cans.
Though the late-night host is still on hiatus until the new year, he returned Sunday night with a new web exclusive, this time all about trash. As always, he managed to sneak in a few digs to set up the bit — in this case he noted that trash is, “the thing Abraham Lincoln produced more of than he did anything else” — before getting to the point of the segment. And this time, the point was to announce he was finally free of the dolls.
If you’re struggling to remember which creepy dolls he’s talking about, here’s a quick refresher. In July, Oliver did another web exclusive, explaining that creepy baby dolls and baby doll parts had been washing up on a 40-mile stretch of beach in Texas. Oliver was deeply traumatized by them, so naturally, he bought them.
“We will do it. And then, crucially, I promise we will figure out the best way to destroy every last one of these pieces of s—!” Oliver said at the time. “For you. For all of you.”
So, during this week’s web exclusive, Oliver revealed that they had finally figured out the way to do it.
First, he tried running them through a recycling plant in Australia that is now named after him (because yes, after making another odd deal, the “Last Week Tonight” host got another facility named for him). But, according to the recycling center, the dolls were the wrong kind of plastic for its machines, and might actually damage the equipment.
“At that point, we were a little bit stuck. Because these dolls need to be disposed of,” Oliver said. “We do not want them haunting our office anymore, whispering the dates of future plane crashes with their eyes.”
In the end, Oliver and his team opted to send the dolls to Sweden. Because apparently there, there are talking trash cans — originally designed to moan sexually when people threw trash in them, as part of a summertime effort to decrease littering. But, since that promotion was over, Oliver was allowed to program the trash cans to say whatever he wanted.
So, with the help of The Cardigans lead singer Nina Persson, the baby dolls met their final resting place. As the singer tossed them out, the garbage can said things like “Sleep well. The time has come for you to haunt god.”
You can watch Oliver’s full web exclusive in the video above.
